In order to use PC VR you’re going to need a PC to power it, and Oculus is looking to make that much easier by joining with a number of key hardware partners to bring “Oculus Ready” PCs to the market.
Starting at price points under $1000, NVIDIA, ASUS, Alienware, Dell, AMD, and Intel will all be releasing hardware in the next year that will feature an Oculus Ready sticker, indicating that the hardware is ready for VR.
“Our goal with the recommended specs is that everything just works,” said Nat Mitchell Oculus’ head of product.
This represents a big step towards bringing VR to consumers. The fact remains that the recommended specs, which include a GTX 970, will require a number of consumers to upgrade their PCs. By labeling and pre-designing kits that are made to work with VR out of the box they fully optimize the experience for consumers looking to transition into the new medium.
Mitchell mentioned on stage that the company would be announcing more partnerships over the course of the next year.
It is interesting to note that earlier this year Brendan Iribe said the whole experience would cost, “about $1500,” a price which almost assuredly included the PC. Extrapolating from that a bit it seems likely that we will see a price point for the Rift that is somewhat similar to what we saw with the development kits. Oculus has yet to make any official announcements on the price, so this remains speculative.
